Low Red Moon (25 page)

“That supposed to be some kind of goddamn joke? The son of a bitch doesn’t have a head, so yeah, he better be fucking dead,” and now Deacon can see the ragged stump of the corpse’s neck, the wet glint of bone and gristle. The man’s naked body is suspended from the high ceiling by its ankles, and there’s a steel washtub sitting on the floor directly underneath. Deacon sees that it’s at least half full, a dull skin forming on the surface as the blood cools and begins to clot.

“Motherfucker’s still bleeding out,” Downs says. “He hasn’t been dead long,” and Deacon turns his head and gags, squeezes his eyes shut tight and leans against the doorframe.

“Hey, man,” Downs shouts at him, “if you’re gonna puke, do it out there in the hall.”

“No, I’m okay,” Deacon says, even though he’s far from okay, and rests his dizzy, aching head against the wall.

“Don’t nobody touch jack shit,” the detective growls. “You hear me?”

“So where the fuck’s the
rest
of him?” one of the cops asks, and “Over there,” Downs says, “and over there, and over there,” and Deacon doesn’t turn around, easy enough to imagine, he doesn’t have to see it for himself.

“And you’re telling me you didn’t have any idea this was here,” Downs says.

“No,” Deacon replies, and then he gags again. “I didn’t know this was here.”

“Just look at the fuckin’ walls,” Ledbetter says, and Deacon raises his head slowly, so much agony from such a simple act, and glances to his right. The unsteady flashlight beam to reveal the graffiti frenzy scarring the brick and plaster: leering demonic faces and blazing eyes, wolf jaws and SS insignia, at least a dozen more swastikas. A Confederate battle flag, and there are long shelves lining the wall, crude things built from cinder blocks and warped and sagging two-by-fours, jammed to overflowing with books and pamphlets. Deacon looks down at the floor and tries to concentrate on not vomiting.

“I have to get out of here,” he says and takes a step towards the hall, stumbles and grabs the doorknob for support.

“Deke, I need to know if you’re getting anything,” Downs says. “I mean anything at all,” and then a jolt like an electric shock from the brass knob, something cold that burns, and Deacon cries out and tries to pull his hand back. The blackness flinches, then surges hungrily around him, pulsing like a rotten heart, and he sinks to his knees on the cement floor. The policemen are talking again, talking
still,
calling out his name, but that’s already some other time ago, some time that hasn’t happened yet and might never happen now, so he doesn’t try to respond.

The Land of Dreams is better far…

The boundless, heaving blackness—India ink and razor-sharp obsidian flakes, poisonous roiling smoke and seawater a mile or more down, all those things and not one even half this perfect black—tugs at the softest parts of Deacon’s brain, and then it melts suddenly away, and he’s watching Scarborough Pentecost hoisting the dead man’s body. The nylon rope tied tight around his ankles, and somewhere overhead a rusted pulley squeaks noisily.

“Upsy-daisy,” Scarborough says and tugs on the rope again.

“Do you think they’ll come?” the girl asks, the girl sitting cross-legged on the floor, cradling the head in her lap. Blood up to her elbows, her clothes washed red-black and a crimson smear across her mouth and chin.

“They’ll come,” Scarborough says. “Don’t you worry. They’ll come.”

“I didn’t expect him to fight so much,” she says and gently strokes the dead man’s hair with her sticky fingers. “Why’s a bum gonna fight so hard to stay alive? I mean, he ate out of garbage cans.”

“Everyone fights, little bird,” Scarborough says and strains at the rope. “Nobody ever goes down to the night-lands without a struggle.”

“I won’t fight,” she says and reaches for the trash bag lying on the floor nearby. “There are worse things than dead.”

“You say that now, but just you wait. Just you wait till it’s your turn, then we’ll see how much you fight.”

“Madam Terpsichore told me it won’t be so bad.”

“With all due respect, Madam Terpsichore hasn’t ever died, now has she?”

“I could ask Miss Josephine,” she says and lifts the head by its matted hair. “She would know, wouldn’t she?”

“Will you please just put the head in the goddamn bag,” he tells her, and now the body hangs ten or fifteen feet above the floor of the room, above the washtub, swaying slightly like a pendulum carved of flesh and bone. “We haven’t got all day.”

“Put the head in the bag,” she sulks. “Put the head in the bag,” mocking him or merely repeating what he’s said, and the plastic bag makes an empty, rustling sound. She ties it shut and looks up, directly at Deacon. Her lips part and her eyes grow wide.

“He sees me,” she whispers.

“He’s fucking dead, Jane,” Scarborough says. “Trust me. He doesn’t see anyone anymore.”

“No, not him.
Him,
” and she points a red index finger, and Deacon tears his hand off the doorknob, wonders how much of himself he’s left behind as the blackness swallows him again. The kind and sightless abyss to wrap him in its ebony amoeba folds and rock him senseless, acid night to dissolve his soul if he only knew how to hold on long enough. But he doesn’t, or it won’t let him, and when he opens his eyes there’s only the headache, worse than before, and Detective Downs is squatting there beside him.

“You still with us, man?”

“Yeah,” Deacon replies, his throat so dry it burns, and he sits down on the floor.

“That’s good. Thought for a second there maybe we’d lost you,” Downs says. “Think you can walk back to the car? We ought to get you out of here before the circus starts.”

“Yeah,” Deacon says again, though he isn’t at all sure if he’s telling the truth. The cop puts an arm around his shoulder and helps him to his feet. Deacon’s head swims, and he slumps against the door, careful not to touch the treacherous brass knob.

“One of you guys give me a hand over here,” the detective says. “We gotta get Mr. Silvey back outside.”

“I’m okay,” Deacon tells him. “Just give me a minute.”

Downs nods and spits on the floor. “I don’t know what you got goin’ on in that head of yours, mister, but I’ll tell you, this shit’s the damnedest thing I’ve ever seen. You did good, Deke.”

“Did I?” he asks. “Is that what you think I did here?” and then the doorway leading back to the hall, the hall leading back out to daylight, bleeds a hundred satin tendrils that slip unseen past the detective and wrap themselves about Deacon, drawing him back down to the floor and merciful, numb oblivion.

“Y
ou’re sure about this?” Sheryl asks again, and this time Deacon doesn’t even bother to answer her, his glare worth at least a thousand words, his eyes saying everything that needs to be said, and she sets the mug of Budweiser and the shot of Jack down on the bar in front of him.

“Fine,” she says. “You’re a grown man, Deacon Silvey.” And then she takes a step back from the bar, crosses her arms, and watches him.

“What? You’ve never seen a drunk fall off the wagon before?”

“I’m not saying a word. This is between you, your pregnant wife, and the bottom of a bottle.”

Deacon stares at the two glasses and then stares at Sheryl, then stares at the beer and the bourbon a little more.

“What’s that crap on the jukebox?” he asks and wipes sweat off his forehead.

“Someone else’s quarter,” she replies.

“Well, it sucks ass. You know I hate that hip-hop shit.”

“So find somewhere else to get smashed,” and then someone shouts at her from the other end of the bar, and Sheryl leaves him alone with the two drinks. He touches the rim of the shot glass, a single drop of whiskey on his index finger, and then places his finger to the tip of his tongue. The sweet, hot taste of Heaven, the fire to burn away his headache, and Deacon shuts his eyes and tries not to listen past the monotonous
whump-whump-whump
from the jukebox to the soft rise and fall of voices and laughter, the careless clink of glasses, the reek of cigarettes and alcohol, all the sounds and smells of The Plaza at 6:25
P.M
. on any Sunday evening. Seedy bar symphony to calm his jangling nerves and soothe the edges off the migraine,
if
it weren’t for the goddamn rap music. He thinks about getting up and unplugging the jukebox, but Sheryl would probably kick his ass out on the sidewalk if he did. And this is where he told Scarborough Pentecost to meet him—The Plaza at 6:30, or I tell the cops every goddamn thing I know.

Deacon opens his eyes and the two glasses are still there, waiting patiently on the scuffed and dented bar, gold and amber, and he picks up the shot of Jack and sets the edge of the glass against his lower lip, taking a breath, drawing the aroma deep inside himself. “Coward,” he whispers, trying hard to think of Chance instead of the decapitated body dangling from the warehouse rafters, instead of the things he saw when he gripped the doorknob. Enough to send fucking Superman scuttling back to the booze, even a whole mouthful of kryptonite better than the memories and the pain and knowing what it all might mean, not being certain what any of it means.

“Fucking pussy,” he mutters, no longer sure if he’s trying to bully himself into or out of taking the drink.

“You’re talking to yourself, Deke,” Sheryl says as she walks past and keeps on going.

“Never a good sign,” Scarborough says and sits down on the empty stool next to him; the raggedy thrift-store girl named Jane is standing behind him. “Fella starts carrying on the circular discussions and next thing you know, it’s Thorazine and electroshock therapy.”

“You’re early,” Deacon says.

“I’m a busy man.”

Deacon draws another deep breath, imagines the whiskey molecules absorbed directly through his nasal passages, his lungs, one big toe in the pool just to see how cold the water is before he takes the dive.

“Yeah,” he says. “I just had a good look at some of your handiwork. Do you get paid for that, or do you do it just for kicks?”

“Six of one, half dozen of the other,” Scarborough Pentecost replies and shouts at Sheryl to bring him a beer. Deacon, the shot glass still held up to his trembling lips, turns around, and the girl smiles a sheepish, guilty smile at him.

“You really don’t have to do that,” she says.

“Why? Don’t you think he’s earned a drink or two?” Scarborough asks her. “You’ll have to forgive her, Mr. Silvey. Someone let her read
The Lives of the Saints
once upon a time, and she hasn’t been the same since.”

Deacon sets the glass back down on the bar.

“Who was he, anyway?”

“Who?”

“The man we killed and left for the police to find,” Jane says before Deacon can answer. “That’s who he means.”

“Hey, now, why don’t you just climb up on a table and tell the whole goddamn room about it?” Scarborough snaps, and she frowns and glances back towards the door.

“Maybe that’s not such a bad idea,” Deacon says. “Maybe that’s exactly what
I
ought to do.”

“Maybe you should just have that drink there, and then have a few more after it, and
then,
Mr. Silvey, think long and hard about Chance and the baby.”

Deacon laughs and rubs at his aching head, the grinding, infinite expansion of pain in his skull, turning circles trapped inside turning circles and no limit to the largest or the smallest wheel.

“Mention Chance one more time, you dickless freak, I’m going to break your goddamn neck.”

And then Scarborough Pentecost leans very close to Deacon, smiling his wide and toothsome grin, wicked-mean smirk like some cartoon Big Bad Wolf. “Personally, though, it’s no skin off my nose, one way or another,” he says.

“Both of you stop it,” Jane hisses under her breath, and then Sheryl brings a bottle of Pabst for Pentecost.

“Are these two supposed to be friends of yours?” she asks Deacon, glaring suspiciously at the tall man and the ragged girl.

“Not especially,” Deacon mumbles and picks up the glass of bourbon again. “Maybe you should bring the bottle.”

“Maybe I shouldn’t,” and she looks back up at Scarborough and then slips away with a wet gray bar rag in one hand and an inky shot of Jägermeister in the other.

“I know you
think
you know the score,” Scarborough says. “You think a killer’s a killer, a monster’s a monster—”

“You set me up, asshole. You made me a fucking accessory to murder.”

“We only helped you show the cops what we needed them to see.”

“It was necessary, Deacon,” the girl says, tracing something on the bar with the ring finger of her right hand, watery geometry of condensation and surface tension. “It had to be perfect. We couldn’t take any chances.”

On the jukebox, the rap song finally ends and is immediately replaced by Nick Cave crooning about God and Tupelo.

“We need you,” Scarborough Pentecost says, his smile fading like a sunset. “And you still need us. She’s still out there.”

“Everything I need, Mr. Whoever-the-hell-you-
really
-are, well, I got it right here in my hand,” and Deacon tips the shot of Jack towards the tall man, make-believe toast to end the charade, all the charades that hold his life together, and then Scarborough plucks the glass from his fingers before it even gets halfway to his mouth.

“You think you know the score, Deacon,” the girl says, gazing intently at the invisible things she’s drawn on the bar. “Where the darkness ends and the light begins, all the sins that turn angels into demons. But you don’t. Not yet.”

Scarborough drains the shot glass and sets it down in front of Deacon, wipes his lips with the back of his hand, and the tip of his tongue darts out to catch a stray drop of liquor lingering at the corner of his mouth.

“Best listen to her, buddy,” he says and jabs a thumb at the girl. “She’s nutty as squirrel shit, but every now and then she starts making sense.”

Deacon nods his head and then wraps his left hand around the empty glass, making a fist, imagines it shattering and the splinters burying themselves deep inside his palm. A long time since he’s been in a fight, but not so long that he’s forgotten anything that matters, anything important, and he swings so hard and fast that Scarborough Pentecost doesn’t have time to dodge the blow. Deacon’s knuckles connecting with the tall man’s nose, the faint snap of bone a second before the shot glass breaks and blood spurts from his hand and Scarborough’s nose in the same red instant. Scarborough grabs for the edge of the bar, misses and tumbles backwards off his stool.

“Did you hear that,
buddy?
” Deacon asks, and when he opens his hand, the few pieces of glass that aren’t embedded in his skin fall to the floor; fresh pain to clear his mind a little bit, welcome counterpoint to the headache’s incessant throb. “How about it, Jane? Am I starting to make sense?”

The raggedy girl glances at Scarborough lying on the floor, cursing and clutching his bleeding nose, and she frowns and looks up at Deacon. “You’re just wasting time,” she says.

“You don’t say?” and when Scarborough tries to get to his feet, Deacon kicks him in the crotch. “Seems to me, I got time enough. Hell, I got just about all the time in the whole goddamn world. Ain’t that right, buddy?”

“We have to find Narcissa
tonight,
” the girl says.

“Who or what is Narcissa and why, exactly, do I give a shit?” he asks and realizes that almost everyone in The Plaza has stopped whatever they were doing and is now staring at him and the man writhing on the floor. Sheryl’s reaching for the phone near the register.

“Stop her, Deacon,” the girl says. “Stop her or I’ll have to.”

Deacon looks down at Scarborough, curled into a moaning, fetal lump at his feet.

“I can’t let her call the police,” Jane whispers, and there’s an edge in her voice more threatening times five than anything Scarborough’s done or said to him, a
promise,
and Deacon stands up and yells across the room at Sheryl.

“Hey, Sher, there ain’t gonna be no need for that. Cross my heart and hope to fuckin’ die. My
friends
and I were just leaving,” and she glares furiously back at him, her fingers resting indecisive on the telephone’s touch pad.

“I absolutely do not need this crap tonight, Deke,” she says and he apologizes and drops a twenty on the bar.

“That’s cool. We’re already out of here,” and he squats down beside Scarborough. “You been listening to all this, buddy? That nice lady over there wants us out of her bar,
tout de suite
.” And then Deacon seizes him by his ponytail and begins dragging him towards the door. Jane follows, keeping an eye on Sheryl. Scarborough flails and snarls and grabs at the strong hand tangled in his hair until Deacon kicks him in the ribs and he stops.

“Thanks, Sheryl,” Deacon says as he opens the plate-glass door painted over in messy crimson strokes to keep out the sun.

“Fuck you,” she replies. “I ought to make your sorry ass come back and mop the blood off the floor.”

“Someday, baby, I’ll make it all up to you, and then some,” and he hauls Scarborough Pentecost out into the gravel parking lot, into the streetlight shafts coming down through the trees and kudzu crowded around the little bar. Jane eases the door shut behind them and sits down in the gravel next to Scarborough.

“You sure she won’t call the police?”

“Yeah, I’m sure,” Deacon says. “Sheryl fucking hates the cops. She used to be married to one of the motherfuckers.”

Scarborough groans and rolls over onto his back, stares up at the night sky through the branches, his face streaked with blood and snot and spit. Every time he exhales, fresh droplets of gore spray from his broken nose.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” Jane says to Deacon. “We’re going to need him later on.”

“Who said I was finished?” and Deacon plants a boot squarely in the center of Scarborough’s chest, pinning him to the ground.

“You can’t go up against Narcissa alone.”

“There’s that name again,” Deacon says and puts a little more weight on Scarborough’s chest. “When do we get to the part where I stop asking questions and you tell me what the hell you’re talking about?”

“Not here, not out in the open like this. She might have spies,” and the girl looks warily up at the trees. “There are always spies.”

Deacon follows her gaze, but all he can see are dead leaves and a few strangling kudzu vines, the sky gone dark so soon, a moment of confusion until he remembers the time change—spring forward, fall back—Sunday, so it’s an hour later than it was this time the day before. He shakes his head and looks back down at Scarborough, who’s smiling his wolfy smile again and pointing a large handgun at Deacon’s head.

“Now move your goddamn foot,” he growls, and Deacon does as he’s told, but keeps his eyes on the barrel of the gun. He takes a step away from the man lying in the gravel, and Scarborough tightens his grip on the trigger.

“Jane, you better hope no one else sees him waving that thing around out here, not if you’re really so worried about the police showing up.”

“He’s right, you know,” she says to Scarborough. “You’re not helping things any.”

“You just shut up a minute, little birdie, and let me deal with Mr. Joe Badass here. You broke my goddamn nose, you son of—”

“Put away the gun, Scarborough,” Jane says very calmly, the way someone tells a child it’s time to turn off the television and go to bed, and Deacon takes another step backwards.

“Don’t think that we can’t do this
without
you,” Scarborough snarls. “Don’t think for a minute there’s any reason in the world for me not to pull this trigger and blow your goddamn head off.”